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Behind The Scenes

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Gaear, Jul 20, 2011.

  1. Gaear

    Gaear ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful

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    Does anybody know what's going on when you go to a random website (with broadband access, so download speed should not be an issue), and you have to wait anywhere from a couple to several seconds before a. it loads, and b. things like your mouse wheel become consistently usable? I assume various processes are running ('active x controls,' whatever that is, java, the little player that plays ads in the columns, etc., etc.). I sometimes even encounter this here at SP.

    In an age where the internet has become generally pretty much instant, it can be very irritating. I always have a sneaking sensation that I'm being violated in some way, although I run daily virus scans that come back clear so it's not actually malware, plus you can usually tell if something's bogging your system down by its general performance overall. I don't have any issues like that - regular apps load quickly and run just fine, games run fine, etc. I also assume this is not just me but an emerging and likely ubiquitous web phenomenon. If it is, it would be as baffling as the brilliant idea they had years back to start trapping visitors at websites by redirecting them back to the site when you click your browser's <- button. I can't imagine a single person on the planet is happy when that happens, yet it's common, so I have to assume the powers that be conclude that user unhappiness = something they desire. Personally I never knowingly go back to a site that does that to me, and this pause/hesitate/wait-for-us-to-load-stuff-that-you-didn't-ask-for business is rapidly gaining in the irritation department as well. Or is there some good explanation for it?
     
  2. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Yeah, I've noticed that more and more lately. Hate it. I assume it's some sort of advertisement loading nonsense where it won't let you continue on the page until the adverts load.
     
  3. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I have that happen every time I enter SP or go to a different page in SP - usually 5-10 seconds before I can do anything.
     
  4. 8people

    8people 8 is just another way of looking at infinite ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran

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    [​IMG] It can depend on a variety of things including the own background programmes you have open on your system at the time. Common culprits can include:

    Advertisements
    Scripts (Including oddly defined HTML can make a page load awkwardly)
    Browser History (Browsers often keep a cache of certain pages for 'easier' loading but it doesn't always work as intended)
    The Browser Itself.
    Other pages open.
    Anti-virus that checks pages as they load
    Non-standard elements such as flash, java, quicktime or in some instances even new or generally unsupported CSS and HTML elements that have a support clause in their programming.
     
  5. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    SP's been slow for the last few months because the largest site on the same server is bursting at the seams and hogging all the CPU power... we've done all the server upgrades we could but it wasn't really enough to put more than a dent in the issue. I'm hoping that their moving to different message board software will mitigate the issue as it's their boards that are causing all the problems. So I hope that we'll get the situation under control in the next few weeks.

    In other words, nothing nefarious is going on. What BTA mentioned is also likely to be happening now and then as different advertising providers handle the displaying of ads different. Those with SPS accounts can just disable ads site-wide and see if it makes a difference. Page loading will certainly be faster.

    Having all kinds of malware protection like Spybot's and various virus scanners on will also significantly slow down page loading and make the whole experience much more sluggish. These programs usually load a page first and then check it for potential threats and display it only if everything's fine - naturally, this slows things down considerably. Being overly paranoid online generally results in a much worse browsing experience which then only adds to more paranoia because "something seems to be happening behind my back" - the problem is, most of the times it'll be 5 protection programs piled up to ensure a "safe" browsing experience. Sure, it keeps you safe... but it's also s l o w . . .

    The best protection is sticking to reputable sites and not browsing the kinds of sites where you can expect shady malware to be installed without your permission (various warez and porn sites and similar). The likelihood of getting any malware off a legit site is very, very slim. But naturally, if you snoop around the shady Internet neighbourhoods a lot, you're just asking for trouble without a lot of protection on.

    That said, I haven't encountered any malware that Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware couldn't remove yet. That coupled with Spybot-SD and AdAware (all used only when you need them, not running all the time) is really all that you need. An anti-virus program is also a good idea, but you really need to go through ALL the settings of EVERY such program to determine what you'll let it do and how it'll run. If you've got more than one program checking the same thing at the same time they'll either be conflicting or redundant but slowing things down no matter what.
     
  6. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Yeah, I had a nasty bug a few months back, and Malwarebyte took care of it just fine.
     
  7. T2Bruno

    T2Bruno The only source of knowledge is experience Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    There's a fake anti-virus thing that Malwarebyte doesn't touch.
     
  8. Gaear

    Gaear ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful

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    Speaking of Spybot, MWB, and AdAware, the only thing that defeated Spybot for me was the Cool Web Search thing (mentioned elsewhere - the Spybot guy actually admitted defeat on that one). But then they changed everything up with a new IMO cludgy version and I haven't used it since (one of those "Our software works brilliantly - let's change it!" moments). I agree that MWB is great. I dumped AdAware some time ago because never once in all the time I used it did it find anything in a scan besides cookies, and its update process was kind of demanding. (I'm talking about free versions here ... I don't buy any of this stuff.)

    Now I just use MWB to scan now and then, and Spywareblaster as a malware shield, with AVG Free anti-virus ('active scanning' and all that crap disabled). It all works great together, and I rarely have viruses or malware.
     
  9. Blades of Vanatar

    Blades of Vanatar Vanatar will rise again Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Hmm.. this topic is out of my realm of PC knowledge. I had AVG free but it caused some issues so I flipped to AVAST, it seems to be doing the job. I also periodically run CCleaner. Should I download Malwarebyte as well?
     
  10. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Gaear, http://free.antivirus.com/cwshredder/

    There's a fix for everything, usually just a Google search away. Though some very insidious malware might take a few days for a fix to appear.

    Blades, definitely... and run it and see what it finds. Often enough you'll see various "innocent" or inactive malware removed that you didn't even notice you had. That's the good kind, really. ;)

    Also, very importantly, new malware is getting released on a daily basis and so are the fixes for it. A LOT of people, and I mean *most* don't realize that you need to run a definitions/database update on these programs EVERY TIME you run them. The best anti-malware programs won't help you if you updated their malware definitions last 2 months ago - before your pet malware even existed. This is where the most "but program X didn't fix my malware problem!" grievances come from.
     
  11. Gaear

    Gaear ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful

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    I wish that (CW shredder) had existed back in 2006 or thereabouts! ;)
     
  12. Topken

    Topken Elven-dragon wizard

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    I was workin on one laptop that had the Google redirect virus and None of my standard programs would touch it. That includes PSybot search and destory, MWB, MSSE. So I had to go hunt one down that would take care of it and it was kapersky that finally removed it for me. That stinking virus took me several weeks to get rid of and it was annoying as ****.
     
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